23. Matt

TWENTY-THREE

MATT

I had nightmares for weeks about Dane's death.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the huge sucking sound, the earth crumbling, the water overflowing the river's banks, and the driveway parting, swallowing my former boss down into the bowels of the earth.

The image of his beast, the fur unfolding over his body, the protruding ears, the half shriek, half growl as he vanished, visited me every night when I closed my eyes.

While Dane's death was horrifying, my brother had been dragged into my mess, and I could never forgive myself for what had happened to him. He was in shock after the incident, unable to speak for hours while I held him. Later, when he discovered I'd been working undercover as Dane's driver, he was enraged, and he pummeled my chest when I hinted I'd sorta been involved with Ranger, the mafia guy I'd met at the speed-dating event.

The day after we returned from the cabin, Josh frantically tossed clothes and toiletries into a suitcase, telling me he needed time alone, far away from the mafia.

I'd assured him Ranger and family were the good guys, and he poured scorn on my foolishness and told me he was going to stay at a friend's cabin in the mountains where no mafia would find him. My brother, like me, wasn't a backwoods guy, and I worried the trauma he'd experienced would fester while he tried to figure out how to light a fire and keep the bears at bay. Or maybe wolves.

"You can't contact me," he'd said. "No phone reception and no wifi."

And he took off in his car, leaving me to come to terms with my own emotional wounds.

It was two months from that day, and while despair was a constant companion, it was lagging. I was charging ahead, glancing at it occasionally over my shoulder, knowing I could outpace it. Or that was what I told myself.

The police operation was long and tedious. There were immediate arrests, but the long tentacle arms of The Obsidian Circle had burrowed into many businesses and lives, and the investigation was ongoing.

My initial series of articles were headline news, just as I'd imagined, and I'd been given police protection. My life was a whirlwind of media interviews where I was asked the same questions, and I answered, my mind spewing out the same answers. Reporters made me out to be a hero because I'd exposed the bad guy.

I'd left my job at The Daily Star and was writing a book about going undercover.

My relationship with Ranger had suffered. Or I should say it'd been crushed, stamped on, and thrown in the garbage.

Prior to that day, I was adjusting to having feelings for a mafia shifter guy. It was my fault Dane had bought Josh as a bargaining chip, but I placed some of the blame on Ranger and the Durand family. My logic was kinda fuzzy, but I figured if they hadn't been involved, I'd have been killed and Josh would never have been kidnapped.

Yeah, I would have been dead, which would have been bad for me, but my brother could have grieved and gone on with his life.

I hadn't spoken to Ranger since that day apart from one text. He'd been lurking ‘cause boxes of groceries and food orders and other bits and bobs arrived at my door. Each morning, the doorbell would ring and coffee and danish pastries would appear outside my apartment. His scent was everywhere in the building, but I blocked my nose and pretended it wasn't.

I suspected once my police protection ended, Ranger had his men looking out for me. Not that I ever saw them.

He didn't call or text, so that was something. I'd have changed my number or left town and joined Josh if he'd harassed me, and while I told myself he couldn't be part of my life, I longed for him to trace his finger over my mark. While it was common after a breakup to think I couldn't fall for anyone again, when I studied my mating hand, I sensed I'd never be in another relationship.

I cried myself to sleep every night, believing I'd be betraying Josh if I got together with Ranger.

But this morning when I opened my eyes, I was faced with interacting with someone I'd rather not. Tony had shoved a note under my door with a time and place for a brunch at a shifter-owned café. He'd added, if I didn't come, he'd sit outside my place until I agreed to see him.

I'll bring the kids if I have to and it'll get loud pretty quickly .

That was the clincher.

I'd never met Flint's mate, and I was eager to hear things from his perspective. But if this was a switcharoo where Ranger was at the restaurant instead of Tony, I'd scuttle out and refuse to engage with him.

I stood on the other side of the road and observed people eating outside the café and the ones I could see through the huge windows inside. Tony must have recognized me—my face had been plastered on the TV—and he waved. I made an attempt at a smile before crossing the street.

He opened his arms and embraced me. I'd missed the comfort that was paired with a hug, and we made small talk about the weather and the menu before ordering. He yawned as his baby, Kendric, was teething and he hadn't had much sleep.

He was easy to talk to, and we avoided the elephant in the room, or the mobsters, until we were halfway through the meal.

"When I mated with Flint—once we got past him wanting to kill me…"

I hadn't laughed in a long while. Since that day at the cabin, and what Tony said wasn't funny, not remotely, but it was comical, and I cackled. I dabbed my mouth with the napkin, hoping to hide my amusement, but I couldn't stifle the giggles.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm laughing."

"Because it is funny. I agree. We joke about it all the time, though not in front of the children. We catch ourselves disagreeing and I'll quip, "At least you no longer want to kill me." He leaned closer. "It's mafia humor."

"How do you reconcile the Flint you adore, your mate and the father of your children, with a guy who might come home one night after his beast has killed someone?"

"There are so many moving parts to a relationship and even more when a human mates a shifter, especially a mafia shifter."

Flint was the pack Alpha, so Tony was the Alpha Omega, an additional responsibility that I wouldn't have had if I'd been with Ranger.

"But I've come to understand that Flint doesn't kill for thrills or just because he doesn't like someone or they're a business rival."

My thoughts went to Dane as usual. That man was in my head more after he died than when he was alive.

"Yes, he administers his own law, his form of justice for people who threaten the family or the pack. But that's pack life. Not mafia."

Tony offered to take me to bear and fox dens not far from their home where the shifters lived a more traditional shifter lifestyle and where disagreements and wrongdoings were an internal matter.

"It's not only the mafia lifestyle but the pack law you have to accept, Matt."

"I can't." I pushed my plate away, my appetite ruined, and fumbled for my phone to pay for the meal.

But Tony grabbed me and flipped my hand over. That one. The mating hand.

"This is not merely a mark, Matt. It's a commitment."

I pulled away. "My involvement almost got my brother, Josh, killed."

"You don't love Ranger? Is that what you're saying?" He stabbed a cherry tomato and ate it.

"It's not a question of love. I can't be with a mobster when another mafia guy caused my brother to run the heck away. He might never recover."

Tony drummed his fingers on the table. "Let me see if I have this right. You being unhappy and Ranger looking like someone ripped his heart out will solve your brother's issues?"

"No." I folded and refolded the napkin into a tiny rectangle. "You're twisting my words."

"Seems to me what Josh needs is love, which he has in abundance from you, and therapy."

"Come on. It's not as simple as that." I needed to get out of here before I burst into tears. "Besides, I can't get in touch with Josh."

Tony held up four fingers. "You were doing your job." He curled one finger over so three remained upright. "You did nothing wrong." Now there were two fingers. "If Dane killed you, he for sure would have gone back on his word and killed Josh too." One remained. "Rather than being the cause, Ranger and the others saved you and Josh."

I pulled the napkin over my face, tears streaming over my cheeks.

"That's not fair."

"Sorry, but if you won't speak to Ranger, you're gonna hear it from me." He tugged at the napkin and it fell into my lap. "La Luna Noir is nothing like The Obsidian Circle. They would never deal in drugs, or kill a human, and they're not corrupt."

He cleared his throat. "Ummm, not strictly true, but they have a code of ethics, and the Durand family warmed to me after Flint mated me, especially after what we discovered about my dad."

Ranger had described part of their business as murky, but maybe it was that way to me, a human and non-mafia member. Before the Dane incident, I had accepted Ranger as my fated mate. Did I have to accept that he came with a family, a pack, and history that stretched back even longer than humans had walked the earth?

"What do I do?" I was faced with an almost impossible choice.

"Talk to Ranger. Beyond that, you're on your own. Dessert?" Tony was already checking out the menu, saying he was eating more than usual as he was still feeding Kendric.

I told him to go ahead but I was done, especially after he was served the toffee pudding. My belly roiled at the thick sauce. Combined with the whiff of caramelized sugar and a warm buttery fragrance, it dripped over the side of the pudding, pooling at the base.

I reared away from Tony's lips glistening with sauce. Gross!

"You're not a fan." Tony laughed. He licked the spoon, and I almost gagged.

Maybe the weeks of stress, lack of sleep, and upheaval were catching up with me.

"You're right. I should talk to Ranger."

I stood outside the café after thanking Tony. Waiting until he'd driven off, I wandered up to the sports car parked at the corner and opened the passenger door.

"You've been here the whole time in your tiny toy car."